This Week in Netflix: Volume 24

Over the holiday weekend I saw Get Smart with my sister. I think my dad wanted to see it, but since my mom deemed it dumb and not worthy of the original television program, he decided not to tag along. I probably should have made him come with us, because I thought it was goofy fun and he would have enjoyed it. She would have, too — in fact, the rest of the audience at the Lake in Barberton was comprised of couples my parents' age.

Jenn and I also saw Hancock, which I had heard was something of a train wreck, but I'd seen Wanted and survived, so I thought I would tempt fate yet again. It wasn't that bad, although I guessed some of the plot twists about twenty minutes into it and my sister was annoyed that the backstory wasn't fully explained. I told her that a review I'd read claimed that the director* left about thirty minutes of footage on the cutting room floor, so maybe there will be a director's cut on the DVD that answers some of the questions she had, like [spoiler] which gods Will Smith and Charlize Theron were supposed to be, and whether the eagle images were really references to a thunderbird motif and if that fit in with the god persona, etc. and so on.

We also watched one of my Netflixed items, Charlie Bartlett. We liked it a lot — made us laugh. I might watch it again with the director commentary on. Robert Downey Jr. is in it, and although I was never into him or Jason Bateman (who is in Hancock) that much in their original teen idol days, I'm kind of into them now. I wonder if I still have that giant poster of RDJr that came in one of my issues of Sassy back in the day (probably 1989 or 1990). I can't remember if my mom made good on her threat to throw them all out, or if I managed to rescue them. She was also going to throw out all of my issues of George, and I don't know what happened to those, either. They might still be in one of the closets. I kind of hope so.

Anyhow, we were going to make it a double feature and watch Be Kind, Rewind, but it was getting late, she doesn't really like Jack Black, and I kind of wanted to finish one of my library books.** So, she went back to reading some compendium of Batman comics that had one of the first appearances of Catwoman in the '50s, complete with cat-shaped car and terrible puns, and I fell asleep about 100 pages from the end. I finished it in the morning, and then picked up Beginner's Greek again. That's kind of a slow starter, and although you know there will be a happy ending, it's kind of annoying how long it takes to get there. I liked Becky: The Life and Loves of Becky Thatcher a lot more. I'm stoked that a ton of books I requested last week are in and ready for me to pick up. I'm at the beginning of the Lily Bard series by Charlaine Harris. I liked the first one, so I hope they're all that good.

In the meantime, though, it's pretty much time for lunch and I've done only maybe twenty minutes' worth of actual work. Urk.

* Peter Berg, formerly of Chicago Hope (where I thought he was totally foxy and hated that sad sack that played his girlfriend) and more recently of Friday Night Lights (which is apparently where he gets all of his bit players now: I just rented The Kingdom the other week, and he used two people from FNL in smallish roles in that, and he used two different people from FNL in Hancock. But it was killing me where I had seen that kid before — I didn't place him as being on FNL, but I knew I'd seen him in a similar role somewhere recently, so I had to IMDB it when I got home.

** Mr. Clarinet, which is actually this rather massive tome about an ex-cop/ex-con PI who goes to Haiti to find this missing kid. Kinda freaky.

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Me on ESPN

2005 MAC ChampionshipOhio over Buffalo, 80-79 OT

The game-winner was a last-second tip-in by Leon Williams (5). It was one of the top ten plays on Sportscenter that night. Since I was sitting behind the basket, you could see me in the video and in this AP photo. (Credit: Mark Duncan)